Because currently, it seems like the only thing it’s recording are downvotes. Meanwhile upvotes are completely ignored, leading to pretty much every profile I see having a negative reputation.
Also, I have a very fragile ego and my -6 reputation hurts a bit.
Currently :
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“Boost” adds reputation. It’s a kind of retweet.
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“Downvote” removes reputation
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“Upvote” does nothing. (edit : for reputation)
This is because previously the upvote was boost, they were switched around to be similar to other fediverse systems.
Dev mentioned in another thread that the reputation system should be changed to have up/down count instead of boost/down. But they have a lot to do right now so it might not be the most pressing issue…
Ah, okay that does make a lot of sense. Poor ernest must be getting swarmed by idiots like me asking for QOL changes. Thanks for the info.
Boost should be removed entirely since it’s nonsense to boost most things. E.g. even if I liked your comment here, why would I want to “retweet” that (and retweet into what even)? I just want to tell you that I liked it… with an upvote.
I think it’s like for compatability with the microblogging side of the fediverse; so when someone on Mastodon follows you they can see what you’ve been “retweeting”.
Also, you can microblog with your kbin account, so boosting with it actually does something.
As @HidingCat said it’s to increase compatibility with the other app. If I’m following your Kbin account from my Mastodon one, when you boost something I’ll see it pop up on my feed. I’d be in favour of keeping it but changing the label to something like “boost to fediverse” or “share with followers”, or even just “share”.
Right but it’s more than that too though - because if someone is following you on mastodon, and they boost your comment - that adds to your reputation. Which makes more sense than liking stuff increasing your reputation, because people on mastodon (or other platforms) will like stuff just to tell you they like it, but boosting means they think more people should see it - which is more equivalent to an upvote than a like is.
I’m playing with different fediverse at the moment as well as this one. That one doesn’t do down votes. Didn’t know it at the time when I signed up. The idea is appealing. The idea is that if you disagree with a comment, then you should interact and leave your own viewpoint. An anonymous, unthoughtful down vote does nothing that leads to a discussion. In reddit I’d see something down voted to oblivion because of a name brand mentioned but no discussion as to why people disagreed.
Thus far all of the fediverse has been positive comments 90% of the time.
That actually makes sense. Legit the reddit style voting system was often just mindless dopamine button pressing where just interacting in the group vote was enough to give you yours but not really encouraging anything beyond that. Iv been sitting here kinda missing it on squabble and now im more ok without.
Without downvotes, you end up with Twitter-tier garbage discourse and arguments because there’s no way for the community to vote to remove an idiot’s platform, just clap-backs and ratios.
The up/downvote system is far from perfect, but I’d really rather not lose it as the fediverse draws more people in. I would much rather have my opinion hidden on occasion because I pissed off a wasp hive than have the content I consume be filled with toxic bait that can only be hidden if a moderator gets involved.
That’s just the current state of the software, not the intended state of the software. There’s a bug right now, reputation’s not supposed to be calculated that way. It’ll get fixed, there’s just rather a lot of higher-priority stuff in flight at the moment.
I don’t like this, I feel like upvotes should add to reputation, not boosts. But that’s just my opinion.
“Upvote” does nothing
Not exactly - it’s technically a “favorite” button. Since I learned exactly what you typed out, I’ve been using it as a way to save posts I want to read later. However it is correct that it does nothing for reputation.
But they have a lot to do right now so it might not be the most pressing issue…
Actually I think this one is pretty high priority. People don’t like seeing negative numbers next to their names. If there is ONE thing that can drive former redditors en masse off a platform, it is an impossibility to accrue karma because the system is (quite literally) broken (as in, it’s incorrectly implemented).
There’s one argument that we don’t want anyone who could be driven away by such a thing as negative karma score, but…I disagree. More users & more content is a good thing. More serotonin for contributing more content is a good thing.